Wednesday, August 1, 2012

I
would say there might be a difference between looking at something and actually
seeing it and when you draw, you have to see it. - Melissa Sweet (all photos courtesy of Melissa Sweet unless otherwise noted)

Oftentimes when discussing a toy with an expert, we wonder
who designed such an amazing product.
What were they thinking? Whenever
I find that out, I tell my kids. Their
faces light up. After I tell them about
the inventor, they look at their toy differently, as if an uncle had made it
for them. There is admiration but more
importantly, there is appreciation.

I remind my kids every once in a while that none of the toys
that come for testing in our home are free.
Even though we didn’t pay for them, there is a hope and expectation
attached to each one because a real live person created it and that is special
and to be respected. It’s my hope that
this newfound respect will broaden their perspective on life and their
future. There are other jobs besides
mommy’s and daddy’s and teacher, doctor, and firefighter. Kids can connect to the outer world through
their toys- the things they touch and stare at closely on a daily basis. It could have been made by a college student
in Minnesota or a teacher in Belgium or an artist in our neighborhood. But once we help them make that connection,
they become interested in Minnesota or Belgium or our neighborhood. All of it becomes very familiar and children
learn new things better when there is a familiar presence involved.

This book has made a huge impact in this household. photo: eeBoo

Here’s something you might find familiar. If you don’t have it, you will likely go out
to buy it just so you can share this story with your child as they attempt to
follow along her book. Welcome to Toys
are Tools’ first Inventor Profile of Melissa
Sweet, author of The
Drawing Book by eeBoo that was reviewed here.

Inventor Profile:
Melissa Sweet: I Do Believe Anybody Can Draw

“It was all I ever did,” said Melissa Sweet in an interview
when I asked her when she first realized that she wanted to become an artist.
“My whole world was about making stuff so it never occurred to me to do
something else.”

Making stuff is what the young Melissa did. And guess what she did after she made
them?

She sold them.

As young as 7 years of age, she would go door to door
selling potholders, cookies, and even perfume!
“And you know,” Melissa quips, “nobody’s going to say NO.” At one point, she even created a baked goods
delivery route for Sunday mornings to bring doughnuts from a cherished
neighborhood bakery.

I silently let out a sigh of relief. I can’t believe this author/illustrator of
nearly 100 children’s books is talking to me and making me laugh. Her resume barely has enough room to fit all
the accolades her work has garnered including the Caldecott
Honor, Oppenheim Toy Portfolio, Parents’ Choice Award, the Robert F.
Sibert Informational Book Medal, the Cook Prize
from Bankstreet, the Golden
Kite Award and many other honors.

Her commercial pursuits really surprised me. I thought I was
going to hear a description about a girl who was painting landscapes by
kindergarten but such was not the case.
Melissa Sweet was a maker, a shaker, a hard-worker.

These are all scenes from Carmine: A Little More Red authored and illustrated by Melissa Sweet

I Am Not a “Good Relaxer”

“I was better off with something to do and I still am,” said
Melissa. “I am not a good relaxer.”

I have two kids who are also not “good relaxers” and so I
asked her about school. Sure enough,
school was a bit tough for the restlessly productive young Melissa. But she was lucky and had some good teachers
along the way. By high school, she was
taking lots of drawing classes. In fact,
she was the first and only girl in her school to take Shop and Mechanical
Drawing. She literally had to have her
parents intervene so that she could be permitted to take the class since no
female students were taking such classes.

I also asked Melissa about her earlier art education. Surprisingly as a child, she didn’t receive
that much formal training. In fact,
Melissa Sweet had started learning how to draw by watching television! There
was an artist named Bob
Gnagy. “He drew using simple shapes, which I loved,” said Melissa. “For a little kid, everybody can draw a shape
and you can get something to look like something and it feels pretty fun.”

This is where Melissa Sweet works

The view from her studio.

Inventor Stories Teach Humility

After finishing college, she went into the greeting card
industry and she described that period of her life as a bridge to working with
children’s books. But here is the
special part: Melissa Sweet said she used this time to get betterrather than describing it as a place to
work until she was discovered which is what I thought she would have
said.

“I mean, my work just wasn’t quite ready for the publishing
world,” she said matter-of-factly.

Melissa Sweet sure knows how to connect with children which
is probably why The
Drawing Book is such a success. A
good teacher is one who knows her student before
she creates a curriculum.

When Melissa Sweet visits schools, she shows children her earlier work (pictured here, a little one of a kind board book)

Twenty years later, Melissa Sweet is accomplishing works like Carmine: A Little More Red which is simply beautiful and part of the giveaway for this article- Hooray!!!

Good Inventors Understand How Kids Think

Melissa talked about Saxton Freymann who is also the creator
of Felt
Mosaics (reviewed here) and a close member of the eeBoo family. “My goal was to create the kind of book that
I had,” she said, referring to cartooning books that she had as a child. “He (Saxton Freymann) and I both watched John
Gnagy, and so we both had these books as kids who liked to draw. They were quirky. They weren’t trying to get you to be… you
know, a great painter. They were just
trying to get you to understand how to make things, how to draw what you see.”

Melissa also intended for the book to be something that she
would have wanted as a kid- something that wasn’t too serious. However, there definitely was intention of
teaching children how to draw, “You could do something and feel like you got a
reasonable facsimile and it was fun.”

I mentioned Number 5’s mom, an avid
eeBoo fan, who thought the eeBoo
drawing books were great because the kids could try something and not feel
bad with their results. “That’s a good
way to put it,” Melissa said. “Because I feel like I am a living proof that
you’re not born drawing well. You want
to feel good. Every kid wants to feel good after they make something.”

An Expert’s Take on the Benefits of Drawing

Interviewing Melissa Sweet was my own feel-good experience.
It was so much fun talking to her! I asked
her how learning to draw is good for a child even if she may not become an
artist. She replied, “Oh, I had a
thought, and then I lost it but I’ll just start talking and see if it comes
back.”

Number 1 Son, following the path of young Melissa Sweet? These are his Lego creations FOR SALE!!! Five dollars a piece. Deal or No Deal?

Do you see what I mean about how awesome it is to find out
who made your children’s favorite things?
Their stories can teach us and our children so much!!! But on a more grounded note, Melissa did have
great thoughts on this subject, if anything, this is the takeaway message:

“I would say there might be a difference between looking at
something and actually seeing it and when you draw, you have to see it. You
have to take something 3-dimensional and make it 2-dimensional,” said
Melissa. She believes that this process
can be taught. “There is no question in my mind. It can be learned. I do believe anybody can draw.”

I kid you not, Number 2 Son, just five years old, has filled all these sketchbooks after tackling a few pages within eeBoo's The Drawing Book a few months ago. He was only drawing a little before he received the book. The bird in the center is something he's learned from The Drawing Book. Can you figure out the other things he's drawn?

She told me that learning how to see the world in a
different way gives us an appreciation of not just the arts but basically
anything that is made. “So for instance, a kid’s sneakers - It had to be drawn
first,” Melissa cited. “I think that art is all about someone’s idea and they
took it to fruition. And it’s not just the arts, it’s any invention. It’s any design.”

YES!!! I had a
feeling that I was doing the right thing by asking my kids to draw often.
However, with kids being so young and taking up information like sponges, I
feel like this is a great time for them to really tackle drawing. I know they are creative. They have lots of ideas but drawing to me
means that you must make a decision to start on an idea and go with it. It means to take a chance and show yourself
what you can make even if you must risk disappointment.

Now, we’re armed with not only the books
she’s authored and illustrated including the eeBoo
Drawing Book, but also her own personal story of hard work and
success. Which one will have the most
impact when we try to convince our kids to take a chance and draw something they’ve
never drawn before? I think all the possible
answers will leave us pleasantly surprised.

Melissa Sweet is one of the reasons eeBoo's toys and games are so beautiful. Their designers rock!

Now Here's A Chance for You to Have Not Only THE DRAWING BOOK but also Carmine: A Little More Red. Use the artwork from the book to familiarize your child with her style and then warm them up to drawing their next greatest creation or have them try drawing first and then let them recognize similar elements in this awesome highly-acclaimed children's book. One set of these two books will go to TWO winners!!!! The prizes can only be shipped to addresses in the U.S.

NOTE: Pinterest and Google Plus Folks- we have entries just for you! This is very much a Pinterest kind of story!

Can't wait to find out if you've won? We understand. Put these great books in your shopping cart today:

Disclosure statement: Toys are Tools has not been compensated in any fashion by the manufacturer of any of the mentioned products for the publication of this post. The product was given to Toys are Tools'
testers to facilitate a review. Reviews are never promised. The books are donated by Melissa Sweet.

19 comments:

I think that interviews with the inventor is a great addition to your site. Having insight into their thoughts and motivations for their creations can shed a whole new light on the item. I would love to see more! I think it would also help inspire kids to try their hand at inventing when they see someone else's success.

I love her work.. I wish Tyler was able to appreciate at this level... It's hard on me after 5 years of design school (Architecture) to not be able to share visual beauty yet... He's just so easily frustrated and is so passionate about the right brained world... I encourage him in artistic observation, but maybe one day it will be drawing

I must say, I love the author's reflections on how time has progressed her artwork. From raising an "I hate to write" boy who now is a film/sound artist who majored in Graphic design, I can see how people mature and find their own over time. I just hope the same holds true for my 10 yr 0ld whose favorite thing is making new characters from lego figures! Hmmm, a miniaturist??

Andy, That is very much the point. There are lots of inventive kids out there and toys are things that they can relate to. It's no longer elusive and mysterious and can then become a possibility. Thanks for writing!

Like she said, anybody can learn to draw. EVEN me!!! I have used her book to decorate t-shirts when I couldn't come up with any idea. Melissa Sweet said that the eeBoo drawing books provide children with "vocabularies" and it really does make sense. My son draws his birds the way she did in her book but someday he will learn to draw birds in a different way and thereby increasing his vocabulary. We are just taking it one step at a time but I'm telling you- sketchbooks are great! They can use a marker and all the pages stay together so they don't worry about it getting lost.

My oldest son thinks in 3D all the time. He's definitely a Lego kid. It's very hard for him to represent his thinking in drawing but we are continuing to try. There are some pages in Melissa Sweet's book that covers drawing in 3D. My son liked those a lot.

I love when toy companies write the name of the inventor on the box of the toy. I think we are able to appreciate the toy better. Whenever my son and I read a book, he always asks me to read the author and illustrator's name. I like that. On books, they include pictures and a short ditty inside the flap. I think they should do that with toys too. Why not?

I am so very lucky that you had the time to speak with me and share your story with my readers. Don't be surprised if you see a new wave of kid entrepreneurs running around delivering doughnuts via bicycle on Sunday mornings. It was a great idea then and it's still a great idea now! My son is making more Lego creations (to sell) as I type this! I hope he finds some good customers! Thanks for dropping by and leaving us this cheerful note!

I love this behind-the-scenes profile. Very cool. I think drawing is very much a useful skill no matter what you end up doing in life, if only, as Melissa says because it helps you truly see the world around you. As for future interviews, I think my son would probably love a profile of a Lego inventor—and info about how he could get hired one day!

Hmmmmm.... I guess you don't mean original Lego inventor, maybe someone who designs one of the many sets/kits..... they must have dozens of designers working for them. I wonder what their office looks like. Maybe they have blocks all over the floor? But getting info about getting hired...... What a great idea!!! Thank you so so much. I love the readers here! This is exactly why I wanted to start the Inventor Profiles... I think we can start thinking about these things. Kristinha, thank you!

I LOVED this post. I LOVED getting to know the author of these books! I'm often very much a skimmer, but I read all of this. It reminded me of the design articles in the Mary Englebreit Home Companion magazine (don't know if that's still published). Those articles like this post really introduced you to creative people. LOVE THAT!